Month of Superhero Film Reviews: Daredevil

10Jun

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Day #10 of my Month of Superhero Film Reviews! During this month I’ll be reviewing of some of the best and worst comic book adapted films. Okay now its time for me to tackle one of the comic book films I’ve been avoiding for around 10 years now, today I’m talking about Daredevil.

Oh god, honestly this was one of the films I just didn’t want to watch. I’d heard so many things about it since its 2003 release in the cinema, I’d heard some people actually liked it, but the majority of people I saw and came across despised it with a passion. My uncle who’s really into comic books told me personally to stay away from that film and he’s usually never wrong. But for this month of superhero reviews I thought I give it a watch and you know what?… What I saw today can’t be unseen.

In terms of the plot involves Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who fights for justice in the courtroom and out of the courtroom as the masked vigilante Daredevil. Over the course of the film he comes across Elektra Natchios who becomes his love interest, has a few scuffles with assassin Bullseye and eventually comes across Wilson Fisk, also known as the crime lord Kingpin.

Well the story was surprising, it was basically a story of love, revenge and realizations. The origin story was glossed over and we’re thrown several years into the future where Matt Murdock is already Daredevil. I feel like there wasn’t enough time for me to get acquainted with Matt prior to his donning of the costume and fighting of injustice which meant I didn’t care about him that much. I understood why he was doing what he was doing, but I didn’t care. A lot of things in this film feel like they happen pretty quickly without enough time to take it in and let progress naturally, like romance between Matt and Elektra that materializes out of nowhere and builds over like two days or something. I didn’t believe that for a second. I can see why some audiences would like this kind of story because it’s a little more adult and darker in its material, but the execution could have been so much better.

Now let’s talk about the cast. Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock/Daredevil was okay, he did what he could with the source material and I didn’t dislike him as much as I thought I would. But the problem is that I just couldn’t feel him in the role. you see there’s certain people who just don’t fit the look and style of a superhero and I believe that applies to Affleck, I’ve seen him act in much better films and he’s awesome these days, but in this film he’s not the Matt Murdock that I envisioned. Next is Jennifer Garner as Elektra Natchios, Garner did look pretty and her character seemed interesting, I just didn’t care about her too much.

And then there’s Colin Farrell as Bullseye, he was hilarious. His character was so over-the-top and ridiculous but that’s what actually made him tolerable and he was much favourite character in the film. Now let’s talk about Michael Clarke Duncan as Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin. I remember when I first saw Duncan Clarke as the The Kingpin and dismissing him completely because of loyalty to the source material, but now I’m older and I can look at this with a different opinion. Duncan Clarke gave a pretty decent interpretation of the character who was still intimidating and strong, though it still wasn’t the Kingpin that I was hoping to see. And lastly there’s Jon Favreau as Franklin “Foggy” Nelson, I did not expect to see Favreau in this film and it through me off, but considering he’s comedy background I’m not overly surprised. He was alright, though a tad annoying because he talked a little too much for my liking.

Now let’s talk about the presentation. Visually the film is alright with a lot of CGI which was probably impressive for its time but now looks far too obvious. I like what they did for Daredevil’s vision, but other than that I felt like the CGI was a bit over-the-top and while obviously some of those Daredevil’s actions couldn’t be done in real like I feel like a lot of the film could have benefited from more stunt work. Also the action and fight scenes were awkward, silly-looking, overly choreographed, badly edited and filmed at such strange angles that it couldn’t be properly appreciated. As for the soundtrack by.Graeme Revell the score is okay though a little overly dramatic for my liking, but the real offender is the choice of songs for this film. Who thought it was a good idea to put so many songs in one film, it’s incredibly distracting and unnecessary. I want to know who the music supervisor was for this film because the choice of songs were horrible, listen I like rock music but it was ill-placed in this film and why in the holy mother of heck is there TWO frigging Evanescence songs in this film? No offence to anyone who likes them but I hate them and those songs were painful and brought back so many bad memories. The film loses points for that fact alone.

And lastly how does it compare to the comics? I’m not well-versed in the Daredevil comics so I can’t answer this one unfortunately haha.

So to conclude Daredevil is a film that just makes me shake my head. Granted I didn’t hate the film as much as I thought I would, that doesn’t mean I liked it very much. There are just far too many issues I have with the film from the story to the action sequences and the horrible music for the soundtrack. I am just not a fan of this film and pray to god Marvel do Daredevil justice when it’s eventually rebooted because God knows it needs it.

Rating: 5/10 (Too many things to complain about here)

So there’s my review people, only 20 more to go. So have you seen Daredevil and if so what are your thoughts on it? Drop me a comment and let me know your thoughts yo! Come back tomorrow and I’ll have a new film review online, until then peace out!

5 responses to “Month of Superhero Film Reviews: Daredevil”

Well done for keeping it up so far 🙂 I disagree with you for like the first time EVER I liked Daredevil when it came out, well I was 13 but I remember enjoying the sound track and the blind fight scenes. It might be different if I were to watch it again and compare it to superhero films nowadays but for nostalgic value I will always like Daredevil!!

OH! I am shocked! Haha. Nah I’m not really, there’s a few people I know that disagree with me about this film. I’m surprised more people haven’t tried to defend this film. I dunno I guess I am sort of looking at this film post-Iron Man and The Dark Knight so my opinions on what make superhero films good have changed a great deal. But no way can I enjoy this the same way I do Spider-Man or X-Men, films from that time that I enjoyed a hell of a lot more.